Semi [OT] Abeno Walking - Part 4 ( final )
Anthony D. Baranyi
thoughts that I wrote down at times during a week long business trip to
Japan that I just finished. This was my second trip to Japan – I went at the
same time, for the same conference in 1999.
God – Japanese nighttime TV is such as wasteland. It's as bad as hotel TV in
places like Atlanta. And one evening I'd swear that I saw a Shinto TV
evangelist! I like hotel TV best in Ottawa or Montreal, because you get the
Quebec channels there. Coincidentally, there was one odd newsbyte on
Japanese TV while I was there – there is a movement in France to "clean up"
French TV. People are complaining about the amount of x-rated material on
broadcast TV. The otherwise quite staid Japanese TV news broadcasts took
clear pleasure in showing some of the "offending" scenes.
Why do so many tall, blond and blue-eyed gaijin end up in Tokyo? Also, why
do Japanese assume that every gaijin is an American? There were a lot of
pissed-off Europeans and South Americans in Tokyo on the final World Cup
weekend, as every Japanese they met tried to speak to them in English. I was
tempted a few times to respond to Japanese speaking English in French, but I
generally took pity.
My last evening in Tokyo I decided to have Western food for a change and
went to an Italian restaurant called "Bellini's" on Harumi-dori, just at the
border between the Ginza and the Tsukiji district. The menu was in Italian
and Japanese, so I ordered in Italian – the poor kid waiting gulped a couple
of times, tried English, then switched to Japanese with a pleading voice.
For the rest of the night we conversed in Japanese.
BTW 1 – there are fish in the Sumida River and the canals surrounding Harumi
Island. If you go to a quiet spot along the river bank just after sunset you
can seen the splashing of the little fish as the big fish chase them. Early
on the Sunday morning, while walking around, I also noticed an old guy
setting up to cast a line off of one of the smaller canal bridges – there
was even a "does and don'ts" sign for the fishermen on the bridge. If I
lived there, I would do the same thing, but I wouldn't eat anything that I
happened to catch.
Tokyo is a city of change. When I was there in 1999 the Tsukiji/Harumi area
was an old, quiet semi-residential area with no hustle and bustle. Now the
big Harumi Triton Center has opened up, along with a new subway, and the
area is crowded day and night. I like the Triton Center shopping and dining
area, it reminds me a lot of similar places in La Jolla near the beach.
Never-the-less, the economy of Tokyo is obviously not as robust as it was 3
years ago. This is particularly obvious in the parks around town, where the
previously perfectly manicured lawns and bushes are often now overgrown,
even in what should be show-piece parks such as Ueno Park.
BTW 2 – A good city map is a godsend for touring Tokyo. I highly recommend
the pocket-sized guidebook and map combination from Fodors called the "City
Pack – Tokyo, the Ultimate Key to the City". I found all sorts of great
out-of-the way places to check out in the book. And the map is full-sized,
so I could actually plan out my trips according to streets and key
locations.
My friend in Osaka asked me if there were any shrines near my hotel. I
didn't think so, other than the big Buddhist temple in Tsukiji, but when I
got back to Tokyo I checked in my guidebook and noticed the Sumiyoshi Shrine
at the end of Tsukijishima district, along the Sumida River. So I took a
quick subway ride, walked through an old neighborhood, and was amazed at the
quiet beauty of the old shrine hidden in the midst of the Tokyo sprawl. What
made the place a bit extra special to me was that it was founded in the 17th
Century by some fishermen from Osaka who were settled on Tsukiji Island by
the Shogun to establish a fishing industry. So there was a distant
connection to my friend in Osaka.
Dave Baranyi